Posted
by
timothyon Sunday April 22, 2012 @12:26PM
from the so-it's-sort-of-a-buzzing-noise dept.

New submitter skipkent writes "Iran's military has started to build a copy of a U.S. surveillance drone captured last year after breaking the software encryption, Iranian media reported on Sunday. General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, said engineers were in the final stages of decoding data from the Sentinel aircraft, which came down in December near the Afghan border, Mehr news agency reported."

It's obviously a copyright infringement. If we are lucky, maybe Iranians will just shoot them.

You're almost right. Terrorists? Oh who cares! WMDs? Sooo 10 years ago. But.... this is copyright infringement! And it is also circumventing an effective protection device ("digital lock")!! That means war! Send in the troops!

Is it? I realise there's probably a whole bunch of official secrets (or the US equivalent), but I was under the impression that US government work was in the public domain by default and can't be copyrighted/patented?

Re: #3 They want leverage. They may now have access to the software, but based on the condition of their air force they are using ~30 year old aviation technology and most of that is probably bought from China, Russia, etc. as opposed to being manufactured at home. Since they can't manufacture their own drones anytime soon they can at least potentially trade not using the information for anything else--or more likely not giving it to China or Russia--to advance their nuclear program. (And actually they migh

It's not unthinkable that they wrote it in the first place. Either on contract, or the US stole it.(Espionage goes both ways - it's not only the other side that participates in it.)

Anyhow, it's not a copyright violation unless the code is copied. If it's just studied and you write your own software, they should be in the clear.And the Iranians are certainly not bound by any EULA preventing disassembly - it's not like they bought the plane.

That strikes more at the heart of the issue here than you may realize. The actual aircraft sitting in their hands is much closer to a compiled binary than source.You can poke at it, run it, look inside and try to reverse engineer it, but the real secret sauce that goes into making drones like this is the design/manufacturing techniques and massive high tech industrial base that are necessary to produce the components. The aircraft's engine isn't likely going to give up the secrets of directional crystal growth that go into manufacturing the turbine blades, and the camera's CCD isn't likely to yield the secrets of semiconductor fabrication necessary to produce another one.

They can probably buy most of the components off the shelf. I doubt they would have to build a semiconductor fab or turbine "directional crystal growth" thingies.Small jet engines are readily available (every airliner has one as an auxiliary power generator unit)... same for CCD cameras and lenses. GPS, CPUs and memory are commodity parts. The airframe can be easily reproduced since they have a real model to work from.The hard part will be the software that ties it all together and they seem to have made some progress on that front. This could be interesting. I do hope they open source whatever they decompile / reverse engineer / create. I'm sure the open source community would love to have a "drone stack" to work on.

Small jet engines are readily available (every airliner has one as an auxiliary power generator unit)

While it's true that every airliner has a small turbine powered auxiliary generator, they're no more a small jet engine than my lawn mower's IC engine is a small F1 racing IC engine. Surface similarities in operation emphatically do not imply equalities in capability and performance. (No matter how many times Hollywood tells you that it does.)

isn't likely to yield the secrets of semiconductor fabrication necessary to produce another one.

No, but it provides a blue print for what the finished product should look like, which can accelerate parallel development; If I asked you to design a replica of a Lamborghini, I'm sure your efforts would be a lot more successful if I gave you an actual car as opposed to just pictures of it.

although if you are going to drive a car that gets such dismal gas mileage as a Lambo then living in an oil rich country is probably a good move - come to think of it when I was going to college the first Lamborghini Countach I ever saw was being driven by some rich kid from Saudi Arabia

That strikes more at the heart of the issue here than you may realize. The actual aircraft sitting in their hands is much closer to a compiled binary than source.

You would think, but it turns out the drone was run on very well documented Ruby. Lucky for us, at the time the drone was built the government was using Rails 1.2 and after trying to upgrade the environment to Rails 3 the Iranians broke every single unit test. What good is a drone with Rails 1.2 these days??? Anyhow, that thing won't be flying again for a long time.

The most I can see them doing is build a mockup that looks like it, showing it flying, and then the entire world concluding, "OMG, they copied the US drone!!!111" — except that it won't contain any of the systems and technology aboard the RQ-170.

Interestingly, as the Western press and pundits hyperventilated over the loss of the drone, Iran's state-controlled media and spokesmen repeatedly changed and finessed their story to fit with the most panicked narratives of "what might have happened".

Logic would dictate that the drone simply malfunctioned and crashed, or at absolute MOST had its control link jammed — a known vulnerability of UAS — and was not brought down in a controlled fashion, nor has been "reverse-engineered".

They claim they jammed the control signal and spoofed the GPS (jammed the encrypted signal and spoofed the unencrypted signal which the drone fell back on). The drone then circled (possibly) and eventually decided to return to base and land, which happened at the spoofed location inside Iran. Do you really find that so extremely difficult to believe? Why do you think "logic dictates" that this is a lie? Alternatively, why do you think this doesn't qualify as bringing the drone down in a controlled fashion?

Logic doesn't come to any such conclusion unless there is already bias in the observer, which with your use of the words "panicked narratives" would indicate that you are.

The way I see it, they appear to have an undamaged US drone (and I tend to associate crash and aircraft as resulting in lots of bits), which the US by claiming it back seems to have verified. Beyond that everything is speculation because politics and propaganda gets involved.

'Undamaged' is relative. Remember they didn't show the undercarriage in their pictures, it was all gussied up with banners. Either the Iranians have decided that the drone is female and has to be modestly dressed, or the thing crash landed / wheels up landed and has a fair bit of damage.

Believing a drone whose undercarriage is completely obscured, probably due to significant damage, is "undamaged" is what's biased. The US asking for the drone back doesn't verify it didn't crash. It verifies they have our drone — which they do.

Well, let's see — not only is Iran Times is not state-owned, it is published in the US. It is also just repeating a Washington Post story [washingtonpost.com]. Further, the fact that the US is continuing to fly drone missions over Iran unabated runs counter to the Iranian government's narrative that they have the capability to "take down" a US drone in the first place.

UAS have some known, long term vulnerabilities that are intrinsic to UAS and cannot be "patched". There are ways some of them can be mitigated or minimized, but we're not talking about "patching a vulnerability" on a Linux host, here. I'm also not sure you're aware how long it takes to get ANY changes into operational ISR systems.

...and then to throw in the claim that the primary reason we'd want to continue to fly UAS missions over Iran would be to make their drone story seem "less c

Here in Australia I heard a story about being able to buy fake Catapillar mining gear off the Chinese. Apparently you can't even tell from the serial numbers of the parts.

A couple of years back a mob got in the way of a shipment of chip card bank teller equipment from China to the UK, and inserted a few extra electronics, including WIFI. Then re-shrunk wrapped them and sent them on their way.

There is nothing that can't be reverse engineered/hijacked if it is important enough. And on the importance scale this would be right up there for both China and Iran.

Now I suddenly understand the strategic importance of ACTA. If they'd signed ACTA, we'd nail 'em when they tried to sell their cheap knockoffs to the Chinese, the Russians, the North-Koreans, the Pakistani, the Venezuelans, the Cubans, the Jemenites, the Hamaz guerilla's, and... .

While Dubya was in office in the U.S., Iran had a President named Mohammed Khatami. Unlike Ahmedinejad, Khatami was a moderate cleric in favor of womens' rights, political reforms, greater freedoms for Iranians, and other moderate ideals. Khatami also was no opposed to political cooperation with the United States, or at least the restoration of diplomatic relations. Bush could easily have reached out a (limited) hand of friendship, and Khatami might very well have shaken it. Relations between Iran and the U.S. could have improved markedly. What happened instead? Bush's Neocon advisers wanted no cooperation/relationship whatosever to develop with Iran. They wanted to maintain Iran's status as an "Enemy of the United States" (perhaps because Israel was also adamant that things be so, and Iran stay politically isolated). So Dubya never reached out to Khatami politically, and actually did the diametric opposite: Iran was included in post 9/11 America's new, and somewhat stupid concept of a "Axis of Evil" that's messing up everything for everyone. No relationship between the U.S. and Iran whatsoever flourished as a result. Not even a limited one. And what happened to Khatami? The moderate Iran President was eventually overruled by Iran's religious hardliners for being too "moderate" or "modern", and his post went to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. The window of opportunity for improving relations between Iran and the U.S./West to some degree was there. But the Neocons wanted Iran to stay on the "Enemies of the U.S." list, and did their best to ensure that no rapprochement with Iran would take place. -------- That brings us to today. Iran and the U.S. are currently enemies. Neither side sees any value in engaging in serious talks or toning down the jingoistic rhetoric. The Iran situation could, at any point, turn into another "Hot War" (Israel in particular seems to like that idea a lot). And all this because Dubya's advisers told him not to shake Khatami's hand. The situation could have been very, very different if the West had engaged in even "limited relations" with Khatami's vision of a more moderate Iran.

And what happened to Khatami? The moderate Iran President was eventually overruled by Iran's religious hardliners for being too "moderate" or "modern",

You shot down your own attempt at revisionist history there. Ahmedinejad isn't really all that radical and would probably go along with some kind of improved relations if he could get away with it, but that's no more an option for him now than it was for Khatami ten years ago.

Not inconsistent, actually. The theocrats put Khatami into power to test the waters, so to speak. Would the US (and the rest of the world) approach a pragmatist? The answer which Bush the Lesser provided was, "No". So they tossed Khatami out and put Ahmedinejad in.

Now, it really doesn't matter whether Ahmedinejad is capable of moderation or not. He is capable of playing (or actually is) a fanatic. And that's all that matters. The clerics gave moderation a chance and it failed. So they went with the hard line stance. Their position looks entirely logical. From their point of view, the USA has no consistent policy towards Iran, the Middle East, or the world, for that matter. It all depends on who we put into office every four years. And more often than not, that person is selected by the nuttiest of either of our political extremes. If I were Iran, I'd be building nukes, drones and anything else I could use to defend myself against such a manic-depressive political regime.

Dealing with the USA is akin to living with a woman who suffers from severe PMS.

The moderate Iran President was eventually overruled by Iran's religious hardliners for being too "moderate" or "modern", and his post went to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Actually Mohammed Khatami served his maximum two terms as president; much like the US. Iran's religious hardliners didn't kick him out he just could not run again by law.

The Iran situation could, at any point, turn into another "Hot War" (Israel in particular seems to like that idea a lot).

Yeah, Israel really wants a Hot War where thousand of their people may die and possibly millions if they get nuked. I don't think they are that stupid. Israel wants security and that is very difficult with a nuclear Iran considering some of their statements such as proposing moving the Jewish state to Europe (which ignores the fact that mos

Is this REALLY what you think? Because outside in the real world all we really see is same old same old...

Still killing Afghans and using more drones than ever to execute people who may or may not be involved in terrorism, and their families, and any pets, livestock and passers by that happen to be in the area.

Oh, and adding Australia to the very long list of countries that you have bases in. Does anyone have a military base in the US? No, well why the fuck do you have to have one in my bloody country?

Hi Iran, we here at the US DoD notice you're trying to build a Predator UAV. Of course Predators are pretty toothless without Hellfire missiles. So to show there's no hard feelings, we decided to send you some. An entire shipment of Hellfire Missiles should be arriving at your reverse engineering facility in just about... now.

Hellfire is a tiny little thing... only about 100lbs. Mavericks are at least 5-6 times that massive and significantly longer. I don't think it would be easy to get a small drone to fire them, and if you did it would still be able to carry 5 or 6 hellfires for every 1 maverick. Also, there's a huge gap in technology - the Maverick is a product of the 60s and the Hellfire (well, the II) is a product of the 90s.

I'd love to see either of those things happen, just to watch the reaction. The US seems to think it is fine to send spy drones over Iran, so presumably it's just fair game to send them over the mainland US too.

The US has spy satellites watching every corner of the earth, presumably the collective EU and China do too, Japan has some... Naturally Iran will be putting its own up at some point, and North Korea will too eventually. Fair's fair, right?

Of course all countries capable of sending up spy satellites are doing so. Remember the Soviet's Salyut and Mir space stations? They were up there for "research" right? Sure, for 30 years they conducted "research".

The problem with spy satellites is that the other guy knows when they'll fly overhead and from what direction the pictures will be taken; they're good for strategic information but not all that useful for real time or covert collection.

They didn't capture a drone intact, they displayed a mockup, and a bad one at that.

All this talk about creating their own drone is more propaganda to prop up the Iranian government's "rep" in the middle east among Islamic countries, who pretty much buy everything Iran's news agencies pump out, clonebrush photoshops, crappy models and all.

Iran isn't a backwater. They have a robotics industry and a space program. Maybe not as sophisticated as Japan, and the US, but pilotless drones aren't designed with cutting edge technology. I don't see why this would be outside Iran's current capabilities.

True, other than the misogynistic, medieval-minded, mass-murdering theocratic thuggery, arm-the-suicide-bombers-who-blow-up-vegetable-markets type stuff. You're right, other than the part where their religious police will arrest you for the wrong sort of hair or beard arrangement, or where their language police have banned the word "pizza," or where they kill people for saying the wrong things, or approve death by stoning... yup, other than that sort of stuff, it might as well be downtown San Francisco, o

No one has commented about them "breaking the software encryption". I am surprised that it would be so easy to do. Could it be true ?Does anyone has insight into what type of encryption is used or how it could be broken ? I'm pretty sure it's not ROT13.

But not beyond China's. Iran and China are best buds, I'd imagine China is behind this, letting Iran wave their dick around since we've been harassing them endlessly for a while. This story http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/probe-traces-bogus-military-parts-to-china/2011/11/07/gIQAmxglvM_blog.html, talks about counterfeit Chinese parts making their way into the weapons supply chain, with all the outsourcing we do to China, I'm sure their taking our tech and applying it elsewhere.

Why, because only Americans are ingenious enough to be engineers? Just because it's beyond your understanding doesn't mean it's beyond someone else's even if they are from a country you seem to judgmentally believe can't have smart people.

And good for them. What were we even doing sending drones into that country in the first place? Because "they're making nukes"? Even if Iran made a nuclear bomb, that would do nothing more than.. put them on equal footing with every country surrounding them who also has a nuclear bomb (most of which got theirs directly or indirectly from us). Frankly, any country spending $600 billion/year on the military doesn't get to cry when other people reverse-engineer the technology we're using to push them around.

I've met some very smart and capable "Persian" engineers. They don't live in Iran, though:)

Seriously, a lot of the smartest and best-educated Iranians no longer live in the country, and probably won't unless the place changes politically.

Think about it - if your home country had a regime like Iran's and you had the means to live just about anywhere else, would you stick around? And if you did, would you work for that regime? There are selfish smart people (duh), but a significant portion of smart people want nothing to do with such a regime.

Ah, but when were you last in Iran so that you could meet smart and capable Persian engineers that DO live in Iran though?

As for the ones that live elsewhere, they live where? The US, which helped egg Saddam on to start a war which killed getting on for a million? And the US was complicit in the Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction (gas)?

Don't get me wrong. The place appears to be run by self serving nut cases. But to be honest is that really much different from most other countries?

Brain drains don't include everyone in a country. In fact, particularly in Iran's case, I suspect that many educated people REFUSE to come to the west because of how they've been treated their whole lives by us. And what about Iran's "regime" is any worse than recent American regimes? (I don't think I need to point to our last president, who's responsible for 100x more deaths than 9/11, while simultaneously using 9/11 as an excuse).

You're also assuming that being smart automatically gives someone the means

That makes a lot of sense. For the Same reason, during WW II, the US got great minds like Einstein.

However, due the incessant prattle of race baiting fascists on Fox News, and they Xenophobia promoted by Dominionist religions, we are probably LOSING a lot of great minds to countries that aren't becoming a bunch of fascist pricks.

I was ready to bail on this country if McCain/Palin were chosen as our leaders -- and I might be ready to bail if the re-elected Obama is still a Republican door mat. By any measure, this country has been SECURED up the wazoo. We have a 40 year low in crime but the police forces around the country are still gathering up drones, body armor, and pepper spray as if they had to deal with some sort of siege war.

Before November of 2008 -- a lot of laws and banks seemed to be VERY READY for the problems ahead -- and it strikes me that things like the Patriot Act and NDAA bills are all about preparing for an expected problem that someone worked really hard to create. You know, like Scott Walker needing to fire teachers because he had an economic shortfall in his state, that was about a million dollars less than the money he gave away to corporations to reward them for being in the state.

Disaster capitalists are creating the justification for their austerity measures, and anyone who is truly insightful, is already aware of where this country is headed. Perhaps I'm not that smart -- because I'm still an American. How fucking sad is that?

Even if Iran made a nuclear bomb, that would do nothing more than.. put them on equal footing with every country surrounding them who also has a nuclear bomb

Hear hear! The sooner they get a nuclear bomb, the sooner I'll quit hearing about how we might or might not go to war in Iran (we won't be going to war in Iran). The US going to war in Iran is just such a stupid fucking idea, but it seems like a good one to the neo-cons because Israel wants it.

I have worked for a number of companies that thought their employees were so much smarter than everyone else that no one could possibly understand their code by disassembling it. That's wrong.

In this particular game, yeah, they'd be right if they were talking U.S. programmers whose experience was Java, but people who had to deal with old hardware where memory locations mattered, no. I sometimes wonder at Apple folks who believe no one but them understands ARM assembly. I know at least three Russian programmers personally who can quote hex codes for ARM instructions for pretty much everything you'd want to do. I am guessing I am not connected enough to know them all.

People in the third world are at a significant advantage. They deal with the hardware and know what the hell they are doing. I personally blame the change in accreditation standards that caused U.S. people to concentrate on being rather than doing. Theory is great until you have to engage in total war.

I personally expect a wave of smart people to wash over the U.S. any time soon. The only question is whether they will have U.S. visas or if they will be employed by a foreign power.

Yes, so did we, over sixty years ago. "Building fighter jets" is not the same as "building fighter jets that have even a fraction of a chance of prevailing against those built in the US, in an actual fight involving real fighter jets."

Like when the Serbians tracked F117s by using commercial radio stations? Nothing is more likely to throw you a curveball than underestimating an opponent - that's exactly what happened on 9/11, everyone presumed they weren't capable of building a bomb big enough to take down a skyscraper....